Students in Ginger Rackley’s fifth-grade class at Saluda Elementary School transformed their science studies into three-dimensional art, creating dioramas that brought different ecosystems to life.
The project, funded by a Be Inspired Grant (BIG) from Tryon Fine Arts Center, combined scientific knowledge with creative expression as students built representations of the ecosystems they have been studying. Each diorama included the ecosystem environment and a food chain showing the relationships between organisms within that ecosystem.
The hands-on project required students to demonstrate their understanding of ecosystem characteristics, organism interactions and energy flow through food chains. By creating physical representations of these concepts, students translated abstract scientific principles into tangible, visual forms.
The arts-integrated approach allowed students to engage with science content through multiple learning modalities while developing creative and construction skills. Students made decisions about how to represent different organisms, habitats and the connections between them in their ecosystem models.
